Untitled Sermon (2)

Introduction.

a. It’s probably hard for you to see what I’m holding, but I’ll explain what it is, and why it’s vitally important for us today. This is a coin I received after a 10 month deployment when I was in the army. It’s in the shape of a Spartan helmet and has our division insignia on it. It’s small, but it represents so much. As a paratrooper, our country taught us a myth: love your brother, hate your enemy. It may not have been put that way in words, but surely in ethos. A little hate will fuel you when you need it in combat. Sometimes a little hate felt good—it works like that, you know? But for your brother in arms, we were taught that we never leave a fallen comrade. We love them to the end.

b. We have all been taught this very thing in different ways haven’t we? It’s not just the Spartan Brigade on deployment. This seed of hating those who wrong you is present when your friend suggests keying the car of the guy who just cut you off—hate your new enemy. The seed is there when you find out that malpractice by your spouses doctor caused their untimely death. This is what we are supposed to do. Yet we are also told that we are supposed to act generously toward our family and take care of them in their elder years as they took care of us when we were growing up—love those who love you. We all have this seed in us, it gives us a pit in our stomach when we see that person, fills us with anger and rage. And then we see our lovely husband or wife, and we are filled with joy and love. Sometimes this happens so quickly it makes our head spin, but of what gain is all of this? What gain is it hate our enemies and love our neighbors?

c. While we all know this myth the world tells us, Jesus gives us an alternative, and a way in which we can bless this whole world, just as he has always wanted us to do.

Mt. 5:43-48

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

1. There is an unhelpful way of thinking about people (v. 43) ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”

a. We should love those who love us back.

i. Friends

ii. Family

iii. Literal neighbors (maybe?)

iv. Return a kind gesture

1. Never return a dish empty

v. It’s easy…but it’s fruitless for others

b. We should hate those who we view as our enemies.

i. Literal geopolitical enemies

1. This mindset would tell us to hate the Russians

ii. Maybe that otherneighbor

1. the nasty one who lets their dog poop in your hard and never cleans it up

2. the one who drives through your streets entirely too fast, especially when your kids are playing outside

3. We don’t have to go far to find this neighbor

iii. Or maybe like a tax collector, it’s somebody within our own community, maybe our very own church, who has done something egregious to us so that we want to treat them as an outcast, avoid them, speak evil of them—in other words hate them.

iv. It’s easy…but it’s fruit is terrible and continues the cycle of hate

2. Jesus offers us an alternative choice (don’t we love alternative choices?) (v. 44) “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”

a. Jesus says to love our enemies

i. You remember those people

1. The guy next door who zooms down the street, swerving around the speed bumps so he doesn’t scrape the underside of his dark blue Subaru STI who gets out with his dog who sprints over to your yard to do his business real quick before he heads for church and sits two pews behind you.

2. Jesus dares us, challenges us, commands us, to love that guy

3. What he doesn’t say is to try to ignore your enemies until they pass and hopefully somebody else might move in who is a little more “Christian.”

b. What Jesus does say is that we should offer love and prayer to those who oppose you and are even actively work against you.

i. It’s one thing to try and be kind and nice and even pray for those people that you don’t really like:

1. Lord, please help Joe quit smoking because he’s a real nitwit and it comes right into the intake for my home’s heating system and stinks up our house!

ii. It’s another to respond in love and in our prayers find empathy for our enemies:

1. Lord, I know Joe is having a hard time after his wife died and he started smoking again. Help him to heal as he mourns that loss, and show me how I can love him in this hard time.

2. And that’s when we should invite Joe over a meal to show our love.

iii. But what about those who are actively seeking your downfall? After all, I don’t think Joe’s grief and smoking was a personal attack on your air quality.

1. I think of the words of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John and an author of one of our earliest writings from the period directly after that of the apostles themselves. He wrote a letter to the church in Philippi and towards the end of the letter reminds them to:

a. “Pray also for kings, and potentates, and princes, and for those that persecute and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross, that your fruit may be manifest to all, and that you may be perfect in Him.”

2. This was a man who was familiar with persecution in all ways, shapes, and forms, who eventually died a martyr at an old age.

3. Imagine being at a PTA meeting at your children’s school with a lady named Rhonda. Rhonda knows very well your “religious convictions” about gender and identity issues and has been working hard to do away with gendered bathrooms in school. She comes up to make sure that you know that she’s getting a petition together for “something” you’re not going to like and that progress is going to finally win.

a. How do you react? How do you love this person who is so against you and what you know to be right and true? Most importantly, why is it worth it?

b. Because loving the unlovable is the greatest blessing we can give this world

3. To love all people is what is means to be children of the Father (v. 45) “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

a. Here Jesus gets into the reason behind the philosophy.

b. To be a child is to emulate the Father (v. 45)

i. When I look at my child, I hope that in most ways he acts like I do (some things I hope he does much better than me!)

ii. To love both the lovable and the unlovable is to be like our Father who has chosen to meet all people where they are, who has first loved us, though we were enemies of God

c. God chooses to offer love to all people, whether or not they have chosen to serve him or not. (v. 45)

i. Both those who do the will of God and those who oppose him receive general blessings like sunshine during the day and moonlight by night.

ii. The righteous and unrighteous are provided for by the Father. (v. 45)

4. Responding to hate with hate merely throws fuel on the fire and does nothing to bring the peace of God (vv. 46-47) “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

a. There’s no reward if you love only those who love you (v. 46)

i. The worst among God’s people offer reciprocal love (v. 46)

ii. A tax collector was a traitor to the people, and yet even they could do this bare act of loving those who loved them.

1. How does this show the world God’s love?

b. There is no merit in greeting only those like you (v.47)

i. Even those outside the covenant community greet and love those who are like themselves (v. 47)

ii. For a people who are supposed to be different and set apart from the Gentiles, they were remarkably similar and failing to genuinely reflect God.

5. Jesus finishes this discussion with a very big imperative (v. 48) “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

a. Earlier in this passage he says that we should love our enemies so that we may be children of God.

b. He gives us this lofty admonition as something to strive for in the way that we love, both those who are loveable and those who are unlovable.

i. Loving the unlovable is the greatest blessing we can give this world.

6. Conclusion

a. Let’s remember here that Jesus is speaking to Jews, so for them to speak to their brothers means the Jews as is evidenced by the juxtaposition to the Gentiles.

i. The people of Israel have forgotten they were chosen to be God’s people through whom God would bless the whole world.

b. By loving the unlovable the church becomes the mode that God uses to bless the world.

7. In 2012, while on deployment to Afghanistan, a soldier named Ed was on patrol responding to an insurgent attack against the civilian population. A van was hit by an explosive device planted by the Taliban. This van was full of children who either died, or were severely burned by the time Ed and his squad arrived. After a thorough search through the tall grass and rocky terrain in the area, they found the enemy who perpetrated this act of violence. After a short firefight they killed several insurgents and wounded one other. Ed, still furious over the children killed and injured, had a choice—to provide first aid to the enemy, or let him bleed out. Ed could still smell the burning vehicle and the charred flesh of the children. Ed wanted to leave him to die—actually he wanted to kill him—and boiled. But Ed chose to love this enemy of his who would sooner have killed Ed than show him any favor. Ed not only provided aid, but gave the insurgent some of his own MRE. In the nights ahead at the detention facility, the insurgent couldn’t stop thinking about what Ed had done, after all, they never would have done such a thing for an enemy—it was bizarre. He didn’t know what to make of it, but it stayed with him the rest of his life.